It's pretty crazy that with all the upgrades in card terminals and POS systems that guests interact with when ordering at a counter nowadays, we still have this situation where guests receiving full table service need to write with a pen and then data entry happens behind the scenes. Like, what the hell.

Outside the US, even in Canada where most things are just like the US, the bill arrives along with a wireless terminal where you enter the tip directly. No writing with an ink pen. Granted, it does feel a bit weird to enter a tip while the server is right there watching, but oftentimes they look away (pretend to get distracted?) or might even leave the terminal at the table for a minute while doing something else. Plus it's usually just hitting a preset anyway (like what we're now familiar with when ordering at a counter) so it's pretty painless. This has been the norm for at least a decade, maybe two!